The feminist blogosphere has buzzed with fat acceptance, which is great, but I wonder what about acne acceptance? I have zits, pimples, and rosacea, all three plague my face, arms, and back. Everyday, I am consumed with conscientious feelings. I always think that someone is going to find me ugly. High School was a place of hurt for me, everyone especially my friends who were boys would tell me that I had 'personality' and what I deserve was a body like (insert name of pretty girl here) and that she didn't deserve a body like the one that she has. But what about mine? Aren't I sexy, pretty, and beautiful? Apparently because of my face, I am not.
But that is what most people think, ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I gauge whether someone is ugly or not by the way they act, not by their physical looks. I do feel bad about myself when I watch T.V. for and about people with clear complexions. I am sure a lot more young women or older women feel the same. So I am asking the feminist blogosphere to blog about acne and how that can affect a young woman's life. It's important to look at the picture of this body-acceptance feminism, not just fatness. For me that is too limiting.
Part II
I was criticized for my last acne acceptance post, I could ignore it and not blog about acne anymore or I could express why I think acne acceptance is important. So I thought I might make the subject clearer. People with acne are a minority, women who have acne are a minority within a minority. The people on T.V. don't have acne, beauty is clear-skin, skinny/average, white, cis-gendered, straight and able-bodied. I also noticed that women/girls with acne is more stigmatized than men/boys having acne.
People ask me about my face and what I should do about it. For the most part people try not to be rude and go on about what kind of makeup I should use or treatment. But on some level I can't help but be a little offended. It's like a skinny person telling a fat person what kind of diet they should go on to lose weight. I hate it when someone tells me that chocolate or coffee causes acne. I was once asked if I washed because apparently acne is just caused by bacteria. Acne is actually caused by your skin oil. I am not ashamed of the way I look, but I was. I was told by my friends that my acne was really ugly, so I constantly used makeup to cover it up. But my friend, who is a guy had just has much as acne as I did was never told to wear makeup nor has anyone asked him what he should use for it. I am female that automatically makes me worried about my appearance. Maybe acne acceptance can lead to facts about acne as well as the facts about makeup and how Pop Culture poorly portrays the female body.
Shouldn't acne acceptance be a part of feminism as much as fat acceptance, disabled acceptance, or LGBTQA acceptance?
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